Karue Sell: Do NOTHING And Gain Clarity

Hey everyone, on today's episode we have Caruso. Many of you know him from his YouTube page with 170,000 subscribers and his new series of Turning Pro at 30. After a standout career at UCLA and taking time off to coach,

He's back on the Pro Tour at 30 years old and is right on the cusp of breaking through into the slams, which is incredibly impressive. On today's episode, we discuss what he learned from stepping away from the game, some of his baseline principles, and why clarity in your game is so important. So sit back, relax, and prepare to become a smarter tennis player. All right, Karu, welcome to the pod.

All right. Thanks for having me. It's been a long overdue, I think. Yeah, man. So you are one person I've been dying to ask you this question. A lot of my former players in college and even juniors kind of when they quit tennis. And they see it from the coaching lens or they get their emotions out of the game. They see the game differently. Like, I honestly think they get smarter the second they stop playing tennis. So you were a great collegiate player and you played a little bit.

You took some time away coaching, influencing, and now you're back at it, turning pro at 30. Have you found that being away from that game in that little middle period has allowed you to see the game differently and learn something different?

yeah i think there's a i think you have like a freedom to explore a little bit more uh when because you're obviously on the courts too a lot especially you kind of go into coaching you're hitting with juniors you're doing all that stuff so um it's there's an interesting part of being able to just work on stuff but like you the back in the back of your mind you're not worried about like will it work while

Play like a match, right? Like I think it's always tricky when like you'll make fine adjustments But you're in the thick of it and just playing every week and and you want to feel those The difference in any tweak like immediately, but it takes a long time I think for things to become sort of natural

I think a perfect example for me was like my serve where I never really had a great serve. Even when I was playing pros, it was like, okay. And then like, I was just messing around in a lesson. I did like a Pete Samper sort of impersonation and I watched a video and I was like, that looks pretty good you know i was like i like the and then i just kind of kept doing it just without thinking i was just like you know i'm playing with kids and doing it and with time it just became

my my natural like sort of service motion and i wasn't thinking about it in terms of like is it getting better is it getting worse am i hitting more aces in the matches my percentage higher it was just purely just getting i wouldn't say better but just free to to to learn to like let your body learn not your mind just learn what do you have to do

And then immediately as a coach, especially when you're coaching juniors, you're just seeing all the, you're seeing all the crap that they're doing. You know what I mean? All the decision-making, all the stuff. It's like, why does he do that? And then you're like, well, I also kind of do that. And it was sort of like, start.

picking up those things very quickly and then when you actually play some points it's almost like unintentionally you sought so much of the crap that like you take it out of your game and you just play freer and clearer and and um so i think coaching honestly probably something if i could go back i would have done maybe from a younger age like you know during the summers more like when i was at ucla and just coach more um

For the sake of getting better and understanding the game a little bit better. So what I'm hearing, especially when you're talking about your serve. Is the freedom of being relaxed, like kind of divorced from an outcome, right? Because you're like, I don't really care if there's any good. So, hey, I'll just see if it looks like Pete. And they're like, damn, it's really good. So have you found that a challenge now that you're back and you're playing at a high level again?

Now you're back in that environment where outcomes really do matter for you. Has that been tricky or you've been able to maintain that into these big matches? No, it's been terrible being back at it. It's much harder to, I think... improve when you're in the thick of competition. I have a much harder time.

just you know allowing myself that freedom to to improve and that you know was a main thing this year to try to improve still to serve you know how the game is going everyone is hitting bigger serving bigger second serves are bigger just like everything is just just more powerful and you can get kind of caught in that wheel of of you know like trying to catch up with with that athleticism and with that with how every player nowadays just like from Fum.

top 100 to 200 to 300 400 it's so complete and so they're such great athletes so uh it's a much harder thing to implement during during the season for sure and and i think some of this time away that i've taken was to like step back and like really go back to just like the simple things that make me a good player and and and they have to

you know there will have to be enough you know like i i can at this age like all of a sudden i'm not going to be serving like ben chelton it's just not going to happen you know what i mean i shouldn't even expect that But when you're in the thick of it, week in, week out, it can be really difficult. So you need to allow yourself some space from it. And I don't think I did that good of a job this year. So it's been a little more challenging.

You mentioned dumb tactics when you were watching your juniors or just maybe people you're working with online. Are there any tactics or situations in a match that really stuck with you that when you were coaching, you were like...

man, that's dumb. Like you said, also, I do that or I did that. What are some of the things that stood out that you see players do where you're like, you know, that's a simple one they can probably get rid of? Oh, that's a good one. I mean, I think... i think a big thing is you know if i was going back to like coaching juniors i i think i would have spent a lot more time on the first four shots of the

of the point with even juniors even juniors that don't serve that well or or return that well um to me i do believe that you know like now when you're in the thick of of playing you realize that like when you feel like you're starting the point with quality um especially if you feel like it can make a lot of returns i think that frees up uh the player a lot like going back and just kind of thinking about players that i used to coach

And how we were, it was so heavily into just trying to improve their consistency and improving kind of. you know just trying to free them to play because you know how juniors are they can get so so tense when you you get to the matches they're like we'll play great here in practice and beat some kid and and then go to to some top player and then go to a tournament and just absolutely play so bad but i

A lot of the times it was just like, they weren't even able to start the point. It's like, you're not even like, you're not putting serves in, you're not making any returns in and that compounds, you know, like those early errors.

compounds into just like not seeing the ball go in you know and and then you just slowly but surely get get more tense so i think i would have i would have probably put a little bit more emphasis on even my own game like more on that early earlier in my career i've always been a naturally good returner so you know you're working a little bit more on the serve but maybe just

coming to making those four shots like just better in general and to me just like you know it's the basic stuff the simple stuff like you're in tough it's decision making in terms of like allowing sort of the ball to dictate what you need to do versus just having this like

like yes you want to get to your spots and hit the right shots but often like you hit a good ball you're you're thinking that you might get something short the player gets their defense deep and you're still going for the shot that you thought

You know it was gonna happen like you know that shorter ball that I was gonna attack But now you're playing from far back. You're still forcing that shot so allowing this the kind of the ball to dictate a little bit more what you do and go back to simplicity if i'm in defense i try to play long and deep and more towards the middle if i'm in offense if i'm controlling the inside the court i can start spreading things out and just maintaining that clarity can be very difficult um there isn't any

I never really think things are right or wrong because everyone plays so to their unique characteristics, but there are certain things like that that are so basic.

tennis geometry that like sometimes we go away from and we're pulling trigger when we don't need it we we're afraid to maybe you know abort a shot that you like you you know i was gonna go for it but his shot was a little bit better than ike's and you don't want to like reset the point and you're forcing things and and that that that can be really difficult and especially at a junior level can be very complicated to to get

out of their heads because they're always trying to do something but they don't know how to do nothing like i just need to do nothing for another ball for another ball for another ball oh now it's time to do something now i'll go do something it's very difficult

I love that. Do nothing. So as a pro, you know, serving, returning the first one, the first ball, like you can't just push that in at your level. Right. Yeah. But there are. You know, I hear three O's or like 10 year olds and it's like, oh, I got to attack my plus one. And I'm like, well, first you got to learn how to like make two balls. Yeah. The threshold is because a lot of people will tell me like, oh, I'm a four O and I want to be four or five. So I've got to really attack these.

And I'm like, you know, I still don't think a 4-5 is really going to make you pay if you're solid. So what is the threshold for you? Is that when you become a top 50 player in college? Is it when you become a 5-5?

When should someone start transitioning from I'm good enough to make those first two balls to now I want to make them with quality and maybe try to force errors or at least get ahead in the point? Honestly, I do think like even at a 4-0 level, they... they can improve that it's more just like you know what's your what's your baseline right safety in terms of like you know this is the shot that i can make all day long right like it's mostly by just not giving errors it's like not

I wouldn't even say like if someone can clean up like their first ball error, the return error and their first ball after the return error, like that goes a long way. And that doesn't mean.

forcing an error hitting a winner or anything like it it's just like hey i i serve out wide and came off nice and i have a decent shot and i'm playing into the open court that's it like just throw the hot potato to that side and see what they can even do with that so i do think like just spending more time and does those

first four shots at every level is really important i think especially the return side for the lower level i think like sometimes they spend a lot of time serving but they you know and they just kind of like but returns back and stuff like that i'm like no actually like

play the return you know and get better at the return so i do think at every level it's important it's just like again the threshold of like your your level to what can you do how aggressive can you be or how often can you just like just chill out put a ball in

i i think it's something that you should do more but they should do it as a game and do it as you know it's part of the practice not just like the end of the practice you know again if you do 90 of your practice is hitting down the middle hitting cross and then 5%, 10% of it is just serving a little bit, returning a little bit. But in a match, in a best of three, you're probably going to have to serve like 80 times and return 80 times. Like, why are we not doing that?

more you know versus like we're never we're not gonna rally 20 balls a rally every point it just doesn't happen but we spend that time just like i need to feel good i need to hit a bunch of balls in but it's like it never happens we get to like eight balls max like five times a set maybe so it's like it's kind of tricky that way uh but there's valor into not giving early mistakes at every level

me it's just like even if you're a 4-0 and you can serve and you just throw a little slice into the open core and you're you didn't make an error great that's a plus You just triggered me because you mentioned feeling good. So that's one thing, too. Like once you get out of tennis, like I could care less what my racket is strung at because I don't play tennis anymore. So why would I care? But when I played.

I was just like you, even if I hit a good forehand, but it didn't feel the right way. Now I'm just going off this deep end. I'm complaining to my coach. So I'm sure when you stopped playing for a while, you weren't as stressed about it.

Have you gone back into the game and been a little less concerned with how things feel and you're just looking at results and going, hey, it doesn't feel great, but my backhand's going in. It's efficient enough. So who really cares what it feels like? Do you still have that as a player, that obsession with feel? Yeah, I still do. It's a hard thing to get away from.

I think that a lot of it is still dictated by how you feel and and it kind of sucks because I agree like when I'm not wasn't playing I could play with whatever racket or whatever and then like yesterday I was hitting I was actually hitting with Zvajda

And my rackets were strung just like slightly too loose. You know, they just came off a little bit too loose. And we were playing with, you know, how these balls these days are a little tricky, like some... batches like we're playing some us opens that were really like flat they weren't like grabbing any spin and we were both just like missing the ball is just flying on us because we're both kind of play a little drivey a little through the court

and he felt so bad and i was like this is so annoying i'm looking i'm worried about like you know just like texting my guy like oh the strings are coming off to lose like whatever so it is so easy to get caught up in that um and i think it's just about because we can't control the outcome we we try to control every single thing around it um where some i envy some guys that can just like

almost like show up with one rack and just play and i'm like god damn how do you do that right so it is tricky but i i like you said i think it's always important I think that's where coaching comes into play a lot, where it's like something might feel a certain way and then I can hopefully...

talk to someone and be like this is how it feels and they're like no but it doesn't look that way and it the outcome is not this so like keep doing what you're doing you know and so like i took a little time off started working you know chris crow um started working with him a little bit and immediately it was like first thing he says like you're trying to do too much your service fine like just get on your toes a little bit more hit at a higher content point you're fine and then

boom that's it right so you need that soundboard sometimes someone to say like kind of like your feelings in a lot of ways like you're playing good you know what i mean so it's a it's an interesting sort of like sport that way again i think in any high level sport you're just in the thick of it and you end up relying too much on the feeling but not so much on the

on like just paying attention to what the outcome is how does a coaching relationship work for someone at your level and especially your experience because you've been a coach slash are a coach so you've got a fresh set of eyes from the outside Is it a collaboration? Is it kind of like consulting? Is it suggestions? Like how much do you take from a guy like Chris versus what you know and what you're watching back on matches? Like how does that work with him?

um it's it is a little bit more on that consulting kind of at least for me for you know a guy my age where it's like i i i just need to feel like a hundred percent clear in what i do and and and really like almost have like like a false sense of confidence that what i do like will be good enough and and you know i'm a good ball striker like i'm you know i can move the the ball really well i can i think i have like a high tennis iq and i need to use those things in order to maybe

offset my you know my downside which is probably like you know my physicality these days and all that stuff so but when you're again when you're in the thick of it you're having i spend this entire maybe year or so just thinking like okay now i'm playing only challengers i'm gonna need to serve bigger i'm gonna need to be hitting the ball a little bit bigger be more offensive and it kind of took away like my identity in a lot of ways and so

going to someone like Chris it's just like for him to give me like the dancer like the first thing he says to me we hadn't even started hitting he's just like I watched some matches you're doing too much you need to do a little bit less and i'm like yeah that's how he feels i feel like my blood pressure is like up here the entire time i'm playing like i've never just like

relaxed just hitting the balls i know i'm gonna make 100 of them and and so like in my case i think he comes off a little bit more like a consultation um there's obviously i think with your if you are younger you may need someone with you constantly and and and maybe helping you a little bit more but like at my kind of stage in my career um i just want to like

I just want someone to just be like, you're being an idiot, do this, and you'll be fine. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. And then I can reset and go back to it. I've got a tricky question for you. You mentioned that you have a good tennis IQ, which obviously I would agree with. If you were watching a player or coaching a player or just referring to anyone, you said, man, they've got a good tennis IQ. What does that mean to you?

Oh, that's a good question. What does that mean to me? I mean, I think there's I think it's like that kind of the way someone can create like a ton of pressure on the other side without stressing themselves like to the limit all the time they're able to to go through the gears of the match you know go go bigger go slower like they are controlling sort of like the tempo of the match uh and and he gets played to their sort of liking and the other guy on the other side it's like

i don't feel like i'm playing that good but i'm never i always feel like i'm like 47 like behind on the point where the other guy is just always like 55 ahead of me on the point and and so like a tennis iq to me it's just like we all have like our own styles right like you know i play you know last year i played learner who you know to me is like crazy high tennis iq

like he's always kind of playing to his strength and controlling the match into that never making bad decisions um there's obviously guys are just more offensive and go for it more and that's the way they play so it's It's an interesting sort of like question that way, because it's like, what does it really mean? But it's just like, it's like, what openings are you seeing? And how are you exploiting those openings?

Very often. I think that's how I would characterize. When I think of like a low tennis IQ, I think of someone who gets stuck on the first problem. So they're playing a match and it's like, let's say I come out against you and your serve is too fast for me.

And I'm like, immediately, I would just be like, well, you could take a step back. You could shorten your swing. You could chip. There's a ton of things you could go to. But they just continue to miss returns because they're like, this is hard. And they're stuck at the first problem.

And so I always think of a high tennis IQ guy is like, here's the first problem. I solved it. I got to a second problem. I solved it. Third problem. I solved it. And eventually you might get to a point of the match where. You can't solve it, but it's not because you're not smart enough. It's because you don't have the puzzle piece. It's like, I don't have the shot to do. I know what the answer is. I'm just not good enough to do it.

So it just means I'm not good enough, but I know where I need to go. And then maybe moving forward, I figure that out. But I see a lot of players and they just get stuck on the very first problem they encounter.

And then they wonder what happened. But I actually think deep down they know the answer. It's just they get a little bit locked up in their own head emotionally and get stuck on the first problem. Yeah, that's like kind of the perfect way, I think, to explain it. It's like you, you know, let's say you get into a match and you... First three games, the guy serves. You don't win a point.

you might need to try something else right like don't get stuck doing that thing because clearly it's not working back up a little bit like take the ball that early or whatever you need to do so yeah it's it's just like this there's awareness to make like micro adjustments constantly just like i'm constantly making micro adjustments because like

you adjust and i have to adjust and then you have to adjust and then i have to adjust and we just sort of played a game until one guy just clearly like just doesn't have what it takes to to make an adjustment to beat you. So that's kind of what it is. You're just constantly playing that game. It's like, oh, you're playing, you know, your serve, your flat tee is firing today. Okay, I'm going to give you the wide here.

go to the wide and then so you're just like it's about sort of like trying to eliminate options on the other side even by slightly like very little bit by a very little bit like trying to like eliminate an option that clearly they're doing very good and it's like okay like i can now i'm gonna take that away from you i'm gonna see if you can do the other thing

oh can you do the other thing okay great now how can i eliminate that and so because you know especially think about like if you're returning there's no way you can cover all three serves you're always going to have to sort of like lean one way figure out one way but like you can always just like you know maybe you look at someone's technique and it's like oh the flat serve is never really that flat so i i can actually cheat over to the wide a little bit because i know if you go

t that's going to curve into me a little bit i'm not going to be fully like stretched out so it's like you can actually or do you do you like hitting the ball on the way up or do you like to hit the allow the ball to kind of drop and then send it right like and so you can try to exploit like those little things that like sometimes technically um you know for me it's like i like to take the ball on the way up if i'm playing the ball on the way down too much i'm probably not

not doing that good of a job so it's like little things like that that you can exploit like technique you can exploit footwork you just like whatever the hole is that you can just like just pound through them and see if they have an answer for it

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You mentioned, we talked a lot about the first four shots earlier. And then you also mentioned like you're a strong baseline player. You hit through the court. Are there any, I know there are like certain patterns that might be unique to you. And you mentioned one earlier about kind of like, oh, you're on defense. You want to play deep through the court. Is there a fundamental baseline principle or idea?

that you've used since you were 12 years old through college till now where you're like, this is basic A1 game plan. It holds up if you're a 3-0, if you're 300 in the world. Is there something like that that you still use today that you just think is a foundational principle of baseline play? Yeah, just baseline principles to me. It's still like, you know, getting forehands from the sea is important. I think attacking...

the forehand to sometimes when someone has like a better a worse back and people try to play to a back in too much versus like let's attack the forehand expose the back and and go there so pace to the forehand and maybe not so much pace to the back and is always like a good way to sort of attack someone push them back bring them forward to the back and have them actually have to hit the back end versus use the pace to hit the back end it's important uh

Maybe not so much in pros, but obviously defending with a little bit more height is important. In pros nowadays is actually the opposite. You want to defend lower because guys are just too tall and they're... if you try to lift on them they're just going to put that ball down where defending with with less height and keeping it low and maybe less pace especially if you can find a back end everyone is very good at Using pace on the back end and using actually catching high up like

to drive, but generating pace off the back end, people aren't as good. So if you can play slow, I think the slice is going to make a comeback, like slicing to the back end, kind of what Grigor was doing to Yannick.

at wimbledon i think that's going to be really good um i think defending through the middle it's always a good thing i think people when they're on the run they panic and they think they need to like open up the court more and then they end up running more i think bringing it back in and just not allowing trying to make yourself run less is important

um and i think yeah i think i think those are the main things i think i mean consistency is still king you know making balls is still king making an extra ball is still uh very valuable um it's it's more of a footwork game and a running game than a hitting game as much as we want to kid ourselves that is about hitting it's about moving so

you know i i lessons sometimes where it's like oh they're worried about their hitting i'm like you can't move you can't move side to side twice like there's nothing you can do until you can move side to side a little bit um and i think the last thing would be picking like conviction into where you're hitting like pick pick like bigger targets you know give yourself a little bit of a margin of error but then be convicted into that

we have conviction into that target that's a big thing i think sometimes players are sort of like they either go for too much in terms of like the target being too small um and then they play without conviction so i always think like bring the target in a little bit but then play with a ton of conviction and and that should should be enough you know you never really have to play this far from the sideline you can always

you know, have two feet of margin and it will do the same damage. You are a learner. You were a coach. You're a great player. I know you're always innovating, learning new things to share on YouTube for your own game. What is something that you learned specifically in the last year coming back and playing that is either a new idea or something you were reminded of that has been crucial for your growth and development as a player?

that's a great question um i mean i think again as much as you know i i love to sort of like find processes you know everyone's processes and see like oh how how do they play this game and how they like it's always interesting to see like someone else's eyes into like you know playing the sport um and to me you know just having there isn't anything technical really or or it's just the best players i've played you know they

they had such clear identities they they were so clear with what they did and they were so relentless with what they did um and that that is something that i think i i've been kind of trying to to rediscover i think last year when i started playing and i was so removed from the game and i just went out and played i was so free and so

so free of thought and just very clear with what i wanted to do and then when i sort of got in the thick of it again again you start comparing yourself to what other guys are doing who's being successful but that

it's that thing of like how how simple can you be like and and and at the same time effective right like it's just like it just this this fine line of being incredibly simple incredibly committed to what you do relentlessly even if you're gonna lose but like that commitment to what you do is something that is it's it's fleeting it sort of comes and goes so um that's been i think sort of the hardest

part of like about being on tour but the part that like i've been kind of trying to search the most like i my buddy marcus is always like you know simplicity is like the ultimate form form of uh of what does it say i forgot how to say but Just like that clarity. it's so fleeting that like to me it's just the most important thing i can talk about serving bigger hitting forehands bigger hitting your ground strokes bigger we can all like think about those things

But the reality is, you know, I always enjoy seeing like seeing a player that sort of does it their own way and figures it out their own way. And to me, that's been something. the last year and a half i've had and when i had it i won and when i i don't have uh it becomes a lot harder uh to to to play so um that's the thing that i keep sort of like grasping for and trying to find all the time and and i'm hoping to sort of get back to that um and you know everything else is just like

it's just like guts and going for it and and and being okay with with the results and all that stuff but um it's a hard sport that way because again there's no there's no way there's no substitute right it's what you got that day and that's what you got I've got a personal question. And so hopefully if you don't want to share it because there's other pro guys watching, like whatever. But, you know, someone said that the game of tennis is incredibly difficult, but it's not complicated.

Right? So when you're talking about being simple and you had that simplicity, you had that clarity, and then you said you lost it. So why do you think, or what was it about after a year, a year and a half? Like, what are some of the things that helped?

that kind of force you specifically to lose clarity? Because a lot of players lose it. Very few ever get it. And then once they have it, they can lose it very quickly. So why do you think you've lost that clarity or that you've lost it for a brief period of time?

I think I lost it because I, you know, when you're playing, like, right, you feel the constant need to evolve. To get better, you need to keep finding the edges that will, you know, like, you know how it is, like small percentages, like, you know, 5% increase on your first percentage might. might mean you're not 250 you're 180 in the world like that those are those fine the fine line in in that can create some pressure on on maybe speeding up the development

And I think I tried to really speed up my development this year. Like I finished last year. I played great tennis. But I was starting to play a lot more challengers and I knew, you know, it was going to become harder. Like I was going to play a lot of challengers this year. And, you know, I think part of me.

you know fell into this this this idea that like i needed to hit the ball bigger that i needed to serve bigger that i needed to be more you know more aggressive than maybe i i like to be um and that doesn't mean i'm not aggressive i'm very aggressive with like a court position kind of standpoint with like moving the ball around but maybe i just don't have you know the raw power that certain players do and i think in that search

i might have like lost a little bit of like my just like my my good traits my my you know my calmness on chord my my ability to to to you know break down a guy as i go um and i think that's all part of you know they always say like your second year on tour is a little it's harder than the first the first you're just adding you're just going

you're just like no one knows who you are you're just going and then by the second year everyone's a little bit more prepared for what you do so like this constant need to evolve can be tricky because like i think to evolve you're gonna take some steps back but like

you also feel like you're you know especially at my age i feel a little bit of pressure of time it's like i i don't have that much time to have this like step back so i think it was just like a just like a lot of little things that just took me out of like my own even just like my own conviction into what i do and just going into like i have this conviction maybe in certain conditions my game is not going to work that well maybe i'm playing a guy who's really hot dad

that week or who just, you know, ripped through a couple of challenges has a lot of confidence. There's not a lot I can do in that situation. But not allowing maybe the results to start shaping.

and that doesn't mean like you don't continue to try to improve but i'm saying like to start like shaping you into like this different player that you're not and having again like this irrational confidence in what you do like you have to have like basically irrational confidence in your own game and so um yeah that was just kind of again this like we kind of talked earlier in the podcast just like

and you're in the thick of it versus coach versus like when you're coaching and removes from it and you're sort of like free to just hit and evolve and improve without thinking about the ranking the next trip whatever whatever uh versus when you're in the thick of it and you're feeling like you you need to you know you just lost three first rounds in a row you're like i need to do something different but like do i or do i just need to like tighten up my thing stay clear and and just

allow myself chances to get back into like winning positions so it's just a good the tour breaks you down man there's a lot of time to think about there's a lot of time to to to watch other guys i tried to watch very very little too i tried to be like as removed as i can but given the nature of what i do it's hard to so it's a it's a complicated game that way we've touched on so many things uh

your own personal experiences, things you see in other players. The last question is always, what is your best for like the 4-0 adult player? So it's okay if it's something we've touched already and you want to double stress it or if there's something different. But if you just had a 4-0 player, generic, you don't know them, what would your best advice be for them and their tennis game? I'd say it's learning how to play in motion. I think a lot of players, they like to hit stationary a lot.

You know, we want to hit down the middle, we want to hit cross. You know, they fundamentally know what they need to do, right? Like, oh, I need to like load up my legs and push and all that stuff. But they don't know what they don't learn how to play in motion meaning just like I need to to You know, I'm in my bubble here behind the baseline

I need to move up to the ball. I need to move back to the ball. I need to move away from the ball. I'm always like moving towards the ball. And like I said earlier, it's a movement sport first. It's not really a hitting.

the ball sport it's not golf that is just like clear ball striking whoever is hitting the ball better wins it's like there is an aspect to it there's there's a difference in level sometimes that you can't like you can be like just a guy who can't move but hits the ball too well the difference in level is too high but two people that are evenly matched usually the better mover is going to win this is just going to be the guy who who is able to manage

the the sort of like the crap that happens in mats right the the chip return that's short and someone missed it is like how do i miss that shot i'm like When was that last time you hit that shot? You just hit down the middle from the back. Like you haven't hit a ball, you know, three feet inside the baseline and below the net like in three weeks.

You know, that happens in the pros too. So I think learning how to play to be comfortable being in motion, like, you know, it's just like I'm moving to my right and I'm hitting, I'm moving forward and I'm hitting, I'm moving backwards and I'm hitting.

uh but always with energy forward and playing from the leg up versus just being so worried about technical things and atp forehand and all kinds of like nonsense that i think sometimes i see online i think that part playing from the ground up first um is to me the the quickest way for someone to like level up and and it takes time it takes it's boring the boring stuff wins you know and and and that's the hardest part about what we do in terms of like trying to make content trying to

you know how people improve but it's like it's the boring crap that like makes you actually get better and so to me uh that would be the number one thing the number one thing the the guys that i've hit that i coach and hid from 65 year old man to to to 10 year old 12 year old kids it's always about like can they start moving it's just slightly better and when they do like i'm like oh yeah now you're playing tennis now you're not just hitting the ball you're actually playing tennis

Absolutely love that answer. And we fought through a ton of technical difficulties. I know. You're an absolute warrior, but I really appreciate you being so open and sharing so many things because you're still on your journey. Yeah, I know there's a lot of.

layers that can relate to some of the things you've gone through and some of those principles. So I'm rooting for you. I watch all your videos. I know a lot of my listeners do as well. So best of luck moving forward and gaining and keeping that clarity. yeah i know man like i'm coming back next week so like it's uh it's time to like actually lock in and and do what i've been doing which has been good in practice and uh

Yeah, it's just finding some joy again, playing, playing the matches. I do like, I like playing and I like training. Those are two things I enjoy doing. I don't really ride. super high or super low when i'm losing or when i'm winning i'm i'm pretty even keel that way um it's just the lifestyle right the traveling the all that stuff that it gets to me a little bit more but i still really enjoy

playing and playing the matches so i need to just like remind myself that i probably don't have that like many years left to do this so like i i need to go out and actually play these matches and and and enjoy them again so that's that's something that hopefully i can i can i can do in the next few weeks

Well, good luck, man. And thanks for coming on the pod. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. All right. I want to thank Karu for joining the pod. Lots of candid thoughts from him, which I really appreciate. And we covered a lot of great topics.

Overall, his idea of trying to do too much is something probably a lot of you can relate to. It's an easy trap to fall into and it rarely turns out well. Don't be afraid to do nothing like Carew said. Play simple tennis even when you're playing someone your level or better.

It's not an easy mindset to adopt, but I think you'll be surprised how far you can go with clarity and a really simple plan. As always, thanks again for listening. I hope you just improved to tennis without even hitting a ball.